Dark Waters (2003)

I saw this film originally on the Sci-Fi channel really late at night. My only reason for watching it was my man, DTVC Hall of Famer Lorenzo Lamas. What other reason do you need?

Dark Waters is about this secret government project to create sharks that can be used as killing machines. They attack an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, and people are worried. Lamas plays a marine biologist, who, along with a beautiful colleague, are forced into investigating the phenomena by a rich man who runs a research laboratory that was started by Lamas's dad. Also, Lamas and the colleague were making a living as scam artists, so if they complete this mission, the rich guy will clear their names. Lamas and his crew take this super, special submarine, which is destroyed by the sharks, and only Lamas, his homegirl, and some other dude survive. They're picked up by the Navy, who hold them prisoner while they complete the shark project. It turns out Lamas's dad is running the project, but he wants to shut it down... I think. The submarine explodes, the sharks die, and only Lamas and the girl and a few others survive.

Lamas is a trip in this. One thing that's funny is how we as the audience know what kind of a martial artist he is. In this film his character really has no reason to be a good fighter, but when he needs to fight the Navy dudes holding him and his friends hostage, we're not surprised when he dispatches them easily. I guess we should be happy he got to use his martial arts in this, even if it was kind of silly in terms of the plot.

This was a bad monster flick. I'm not being facetious. If you like monster flicks, this was a bad one, because the monsters, i.e. the sharks, were barely in it. The plot veered off on this weird Lamas and his buddies being held hostage course. A film like this needs an identity. It was marketed as a monster movie, so it needed the monsters. It's possible the film makers ran out of money on Lamas's haircare products, and couldn't keep the CGI sharks in the film enough.

The ending was kind of weird. The sub was destroyed to kill the sharks--with all the sailors on it too. There were a couple of sailors that I could see as Evil, but they were all high up the chain of command. The whole thing left a weird taste in my mouth. How do you reconcile a bunch of poor E3's working on a sub, that just happens to be one where their superiors are working on a horribly twisted project, all dying? I would've felt better if they popped up from the water with life jackets on.

The only real use for this film is to have on in the background when you're up late writing a paper, or if you can't sleep and Sci-Fi happens to be airing it. It's just too blah for any other purpose.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0391908/

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